Alberta Child Care Grant Funding Program

Child care grant funding guide

Licensed daycare, out-of-school care and preschool programs, as well as licensed family day home agencies can apply for grant funding to support the recruitment, retention and professional development of their certified educators. Available supports include wage top-up, professional development funding and release grant funding, and mandatory employer contribution funding.

Read the Alberta Child Care Grant Funding Guide to see if you are eligible and learn about the process to apply for wage top-up, professional development, release time and mandatory employer contributions funding.

Types of funding

Wage top-up funding

This funding provides licensed child care programs with a wage top-up for certified early childhood educators over and above the base wage paid by the employer. Staff must be paid at least minimum wage before the wage top-up.

Eligibility

Wage top-up funding provides a wage enhancement for certified frontline staff who:

• provide direct child care, including program supervisors and alternate supervisors (as defined in the Early Learning and Child Care Regulation) as well as people hired in the role of family child care consultants or coordinators with a licensed family day home agency
• are certified as an early childhood educator Level 1, 2 or 3
• meet the conditions outlined in the Eligible hours for wage top-up section of the Alberta Child Care Grant Funding Guide.

Funding rates

Table 1. Wage Top-up Rates

Funding is paid monthly up to a maximum of 181 hours at the following rates.

Table 2. Average Employer Paid Wages Before and After Wage Top-up Funding

Professional development funding

This funding is provided to licensed child care programs to assist with the costs of approved post-secondary tuition and textbooks, as well as approved conferences or workshops for their eligible educators certified as Level 1, 2, or 3 early childhood educator.

To receive professional development funding, the program is required to submit a Professional Development Funding Request form.

Other professional development opportunities are available through ministry-funded organizations.

Eligibility

Professional development funding is intended for certified early childhood educators who are paid employees of licensed child care programs, as well as family day home program educators working under licensed family day home agencies, who:

• provide direct child care, including program supervisors and alternate supervisors (as defined in the Early Learning and Child Care Regulation), as well as people hired in the role of family child care consultants/coordinators with a licensed family day home agency
• are certified as an early childhood educator Level 1, 2 or 3
• are a Canadian citizen or an official Permanent Resident of Canada
• have worked at least 29 hours in at least one month preceding the date of the expenditure or the date the application was received

Funding rates

Table 3. Professional development funding rates (effective September 1, 2021)

Release time funding

Release time funding is available to all early childhood educators who are eligible for the professional development funding. This funding allows early childhood educators to be paid while studying, completing post-secondary coursework and/or attending workshops that have been approved for professional development funding. Upon completion of the training, early childhood educators are eligible for release time funding regardless of when training occurs, such as outside of regular working hours. Release time funding is a taxable benefit.

Eligibility

This funding is for early childhood educators who are paid employees of licensed child care programs or family day home program educators working under licensed family day home agencies who:

• are eligible for professional development funding, and
• paid for or enrolled in a post-secondary course, workshop or conference that is approved for professional development funding.

To receive the release time funding, the program is required to submit the Professional Development Funding Request form.

Funding rates

Table 4. Rate of payment to program per Early Childhood Educator.

Mandatory employer contribution funding

Child care programs that receive wage top-up funding can receive mandatory employer contribution funding to assist the program with making the required payroll contributions and premium payments associated with the wage top-up payments.

The mandatory employer contribution funding is paid at the rate of 9.51% of the wage top-up funding received by the program, approximately representing the program’s Canadian Pension Plan (CPP), Employment Insurance (EI), and Workers’ Compensation Board (WBC) payroll expenditures related to the wage top-ups.

Eligibility

The program is eligible to receive the mandatory employer contribution funding for each early childhood educator staff member for whom the program receives wage top-up funding, provided that the program also makes CPP contributions and pays EI and WCB premiums for that early childhood educators staff member.

How to apply for funding

Child care programs eligible and interested in receiving the wage top-up, professional development, release time and mandatory employer contribution funding need to sign a grant agreement online in the Child Care Licensing Portal.

Step 1. Review the program guide

Details about eligibility, application process and requirements are included in the Alberta Child Care Grant Funding Guide. Read the guide before applying.

Step 2. Log into the Child Care Licensing Portal account to request, review and sign the grant agreement.

An individual with official signing authority for the child care program must have an account in the Child Care Licensing portal to review and sign the grant agreement.

For instructions on how to create a new account or log into an existing account refer to the Child Care Licensing Portal – Operator Login Guide.

For instructions on how to access and sign the grant agreement for wage top-up and professional development funding refer to the Child Care Licensing Portal– Signing Wage Top-up & PD Grant Agreements.

After you apply

Grant funding payments

After the grant agreement has been signed, programs will have to submit an online claim after each month to receive wage top-up and mandatory employer contribution funding payments. Find out more about the online child care claims system.

Wage top-ups and the mandatory employer contributions funding will be paid based on the monthly hours claimed by the program.

Professional development and release time funding will be paid based on an approved Professional Development Funding Request as part of the overall child care program deposit when the next monthly claim is processed.

Find out more about the online child care claims system.

Contact

Connect with the Alberta Child Care Grant Funding Program:

Hours: 8:15 am to 4:30 pm (open Monday to Friday, closed statutory holidays)
Phone: 780-422-1119
Toll free: 1-800-661-9754
Email: [email protected]